Plastic waste in the environment can modify habitats and change the mating, feeding and dispersal behaviours of organisms. This Progress discusses the emerging understanding of the ecological and evolutionary consequences of these effects of plastic pollution.

An assessment of existing coral restoration projects finds that accessibility drives the choice of restoration sites more than environmental and ecological factors, and most restored reefs have been or will soon be impacted by severe bleaching.

Deep-pelagic ecosystems are critical for climate regulation, food security and global economic activities, yet the focus of deep-sea research and conservation remains on seafloor-associated ecosystems. We discuss the overlooked deep-pelagic ecosystems and call for their recognition as social–ecological systems.

This study explores four decades of biodiversity change across the tree of life in Germany’s terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems by sequencing standardized biota samples from a long-term pollution monitoring archive.

Experimental characterization of the pathways by which the carbapenemase KPC-2 evolves high activity against ceftazidime reveals strong epistasis underpinning four major resistance groups, each with distinct phenotypic profiles that may shape the enzyme’s long-term success.

Vegetation responses to water limitation are difficult to predict due to large variation across space and time. A new analysis of global soil moisture dynamics reveals that water-use strategies vary systematically by vegetation type in response to ecological and climatic conditions.

Precipitation is a key driver of plant growth. Here the authors integrate ground-based observations, remote sensing and process-based models to disentangle the relative contribution of preceding-year and current-year precipitation on plant productivity and identify its predictors across biomes.

How tree diversity effects on ecosystem functioning vary along climatic gradients is unclear. Here, analysing data from 15 experimental forest sites, the authors show that tree growth responses to neighbourhood species diversity are stronger in wetter climates but are unaffected by interannual climatic variation within sites.

A combination of ancestral reconstruction and deep mutational scanning to examine the genotype–phenotype maps of steroid receptors shows that the properties of ancestral genotype–phenotype maps determine the lineage-specific evolution of DNA specificity.

Changes in seed banking practices and business incentives are needed to ensure restoration practitioners have access to plentiful and reliable supplies of diverse native seeds.

Qiang Xu has been captivated by citrus fruits since childhood.

Growing evidence suggests that timescales for plastic degradation have been vastly underestimated. The fossil record of plastic-like biopolymers might provide a perspective on plastic fossilization in deep time.